g, nor
indeed can know.

The importance of such an inquiry will become apparent as we proceed;
but it may be convenient that I should call attention to the matter
briefly at the outset. It frequently happens that the one remaining plea
of many critics for adopting readings of a certain kind, is the
inexplicable nature of the phenomena which these readings exhibit. 'How
will you possibly account for such a reading as the present,' (say
they,) 'if it be not authentic?' Or they say nothing, but leave it to be
inferred that the reading they adopt,--in spite of its intrinsic
improbability, in spite also of the slender amount of evidence on which
it rests,--must needs be accepted as true. They lose sight of the
correlative difficulty:--How comes it to pass that the rest of the
copies read the place otherwise? On all such occasions it is impossible
to overestimate the importance of detecting the particular cause which
has brought about, or which at least will fully account for, this
depravation. When this has been done, it is hardly too much to say that
a case presents itself like as when a pasteboard mask has been torn
away, and the ghost is discovered with a broad grin on his face behind
it.

The discussion on which I now enter is then on the Causes of the various
Corruptions of the Text. [The reader shall be shewn with illustrations
to what particular source they are to be severally ascribed. When
representative passages have been thus labelled, and the causes are seen
in operation, he will be able to pierce the mystery, and all the better
to winnow the evil from among the good.]

Sec. 3.

When I take into my hands an ancient copy of the Gospels, I expect that
it will exhibit sundry inaccuracies and imperfections: and I am never
disappointed in my expectation. The discovery however creates no
uneasiness, so long as the phenomena evolved are of a certain kind and
range within easily definable limits. Thus:--

1. Whatever belongs to peculiarities of spelling or fashions of writing,
I can afford to disregard. For example, it is clearly consistent with
perfect good faith, that a scribe should spell [Greek: krabatton][15] in
several different ways: that he should write [Greek: outo] for [Greek:
outos], or the contrary: that he should add or omit what grammarians
call the [Greek: n ephelkystikon]. The questions really touched by
irregularities such as these concern the date and country where the MS.
was produced; not by